Patents by Inventor Teresa Mah

Teresa Mah has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 8515183
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that utilize images to generate identifiers of entities and to determine various relationships between entities and web pages are described. A collection of class images that represent various people and non-people entities deemed relevant for tracking user behavior is generated. Given a class image that represents an entity, an image identifier comprising unique feature vectors for that class image is generated. Given an arbitrary web page, all the images embedded on the web page are analyzed. Each embedded image is compared to the image identifiers of the collection of class images to determine whether or not any entities of interest appear in the embedded images of the web page. If relevant entities do appear on the web page, various associations can be made between the entities found on the page, and between the uniform resource locator (URL) of the web page where the entities appear.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2010
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Lee-Ming Zen, Valeri Liborski, Gerard Gjonej, Teresa Mah
  • Patent number: 8359276
    Abstract: An influential persons identification system and method for identifying a set of influential persons (or influencers) in a social network (such as an online social network). The influential persons set is generated such that by sending a message to the set the message will be propagated through the network at the greatest speed and coverage. A ranking of users is generated, and a pruning process is performed starting with the top-ranked user and working down the list. For each user on the list, the user is identified as an influencer and then the user and each of his friends are deleted from the social network users list. Next, the same process is performed for the second-ranked user, the third-ranked user, and so forth. The process terminates when the list of users of the social network is exhausted or the desired number of influencers on the influential person set is reached.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 22, 2013
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Dong Zhuang, Benyu Zhang, Heng Zhang, Jeremy Tantrum, Teresa Mah, Hua-Jun Zeng, Zheng Chen, Jian Wang
  • Publication number: 20120155776
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that utilize images to generate identifiers of entities and to determine various relationships between entities and web pages are described. A collection of class images that represent various people and non-people entities deemed relevant for tracking user behavior is generated. Given a class image that represents an entity, an image identifier comprising unique feature vectors for that class image is generated. Given an arbitrary web page, all the images embedded on the web page are analyzed. Each embedded image is compared to the image identifiers of the collection of class images to determine whether or not any entities of interest appear in the embedded images of the web page. If relevant entities do appear on the web page, various associations can be made between the entities found on the page, and between the uniform resource locator (URL) of the web page where the entities appear.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 21, 2010
    Publication date: June 21, 2012
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: LEE-MING ZEN, VALERI LIBORSKI, GERARD GJONEJ, TERESA MAH
  • Patent number: 7974994
    Abstract: Computer-readable media, systems, and methods for sensitive webpage content detection are described. In embodiments, a multi-class classifier is developed and one or more webpages with webpage content are received. In various embodiments, the one or more webpages are analyzed with the multi-class classifier and, in various embodiments, a sensitivity level is predicted that is associated with the webpage content of the one or more webpages. In various other embodiments, the multi-class classifier includes one or more sensitivity categories.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 5, 2011
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Ying Li, Teresa Mah, Jie Tong, Xin Jin, Saleel Sathe, Jingyi Xu
  • Publication number: 20110083013
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for facilitating personalization of web content is provided, while protecting the privacy of the user data utilized to personalize the user's experience. A privacy vault may collect user data including user activity data, demographic data, and user interests submitted by a user. In one embodiment, the privacy vault operates on a user client device. The privacy vault sends the user data to a community vault that collects user data from multiple users. The community vault generates segment rules that whether a user belongs to a user segment, which expresses a user's interest. The segment rules are then communicated back to the privacy vault, which assigns one or more user segments to the user based on the user data available to the privacy vault and the segment rules. The privacy vault may communicate user segments to one or more content providers that supply personalized content that is selected based on the user segments provided.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 7, 2009
    Publication date: April 7, 2011
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: Nir Nice, Melissa W. Dunn, Eric Picard, Amit Shaked, Eric Don Van Valkenburg, Alexander George Gounares, Friedman Arie, Sefy Ophir, Boaz Feldbaum, Vu A. Ha, Teresa Mah, Darrell Jay Cannon, Michael Joseph Toutonghi, Uri Barash, Cynthia Dwork, Ying Li
  • Publication number: 20080320010
    Abstract: Computer-readable media, systems, and methods for sensitive webpage content detection are described. In embodiments, a multi-class classifier is developed and one or more webpages with webpage content are received. In various embodiments, the one or more webpages are analyzed with the multi-class classifier and, in various embodiments, a sensitivity level is predicted that is associated with the webpage content of the one or more webpages. In various other embodiments, the multi-class classifier includes one or more sensitivity categories.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 14, 2007
    Publication date: December 25, 2008
    Applicant: MICROSOFT CORPORATION
    Inventors: YING LI, Teresa Mah, Jie Tong, Xin Jin, Saleel Sathe, Jingyi Xu
  • Publication number: 20080104225
    Abstract: A social network visualization and mining system that includes a visualization application for mining social networks of users in an online social network. This visualization can be used to mine the social network for additional information and intelligence. The social network is displaying in graphical form, such as a node-link graph, with a center node representing the social network of a user being examined, and secondary nodes represent the primary user's friends. Lines represent links between the primary user and his friends, while various visualization features such as line thickness, line color, and text size are used to easily identify the type of relationship between users. The system also includes a topics visualization module, which builds and displays a social network based on a certain topic or keyword that is entered by the application user. A demographic prediction module examines a user's social network to predict demographics of users.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 1, 2006
    Publication date: May 1, 2008
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Heng Zhang, Benyu Zhang, Teresa Mah, Dong Zhuang, Jeremy Tantrum, Ying Li
  • Publication number: 20080070209
    Abstract: An influential persons identification system and method for identifying a set of influential persons (or influencers) in a social network (such as an online social network). The influential persons set is generated such that by sending a message to the set the message will be propagated through the network at the greatest speed and coverage. A ranking of users is generated, and a pruning process is performed starting with the top-ranked user and working down the list. For each user on the list, the user is identified as an influencer and then the user and each of his friends are deleted from the social network users list. Next, the same process is performed for the second-ranked user, the third-ranked user, and so forth. The process terminates when the list of users of the social network is exhausted or the desired number of influencers on the influential person set is reached.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 20, 2006
    Publication date: March 20, 2008
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Dong Zhuang, Benyu Zhang, Heng Zhang, Jeremy Tantrum, Teresa Mah, Hua-Jun Zeng, Zheng Chen, Jian Wang
  • Publication number: 20070208728
    Abstract: This invention provides a system and method for predicting user demographic attributes for non-registered users and users with incomplete profiles. The invention uses demographic information from registered users and user search history logs to create a database of information that associates the users' search history habits with their demographic attributes. The invention creates a first database that associates users' search query history with their demographic attributes, and also creates a second database that associates web pages that users have visited frequently along with the users' demographic attributes. The invention can compare the searching and browsing habits of non-registered users and users with incomplete profiles to the searching and browsing habits of registered users.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 3, 2006
    Publication date: September 6, 2007
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Benyu Zhang, Honghua Dai, Hua-Jun Zeng, Li Qi, Tarek Najm, Teresa Mah, Vladimir Shipunov, Ying Li, Zheng Chen
  • Publication number: 20060262145
    Abstract: Methods and systems for displaying data retrieved from a multi-dimensional data source via an interactive data diagram. A graphical user interface is responsive to input from a user to retrieve multi-dimensional data for display via an interactive data diagram. The interactive data diagram displays multi-dimensional data in a hierarchical structure that includes a plurality of dimension levels and one or more member levels within each dimension level. A user specifies a change to the display structure by selecting a displayed member level in the hierarchical structure. The interactive data diagram is responsive to the user specified change to generate a drilled down data diagram displaying detailed dimension and member levels related to the selected member level.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 18, 2005
    Publication date: November 23, 2006
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Benyu Zhang, Teresa Mah, Lee Wang, Julie Hesseltine Richardson
  • Publication number: 20060085434
    Abstract: A system and method are provided for deriving business intelligence (BI) data and exploring the derived data. The system may include a business intelligence engine and a business intelligence visualizer. The BI engine may be responsible for deriving or discovering fact summary data. The fact summary data may include aggregated or trend data in addition to the dimension or measure data. The BI engine may include components for determining fact summary data such as “What's Hot” and “What's Not Hot”. The components of the BI engine may include an algorithm for automatically generating “hotness scores” for members of dimensions or combinations of dimensions. The BI visualizer provides a chart node tree display for user exploration.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 30, 2004
    Publication date: April 20, 2006
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Teresa Mah, Ying Li, Benyu Zhang
  • Patent number: 7020643
    Abstract: A system and method for extracting funnels from at least one input clickstream (CS) representing an ordered path of successively viewed web pages. The invention stores the CS in one or more tree structures in one scan, then traverses each tree structure to identify funnels satisfying input criteria, if any. The input criteria includes depth criteria, width criteria, starting page criteria, and end page criteria.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 25, 2002
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2006
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Teresa Mah, Hendricus D. J. Hoek, Ying Li
  • Patent number: 6982708
    Abstract: Displaying a funnel from clickstream data as a hierarchy to a user for analysis wherein the funnel represents an ordered path of web pages successively viewed by the user. The invention includes clickpath visualization software to enable the user to easily analyze and evaluate clickpaths by focusing only on subpaths of interest. The invention software provides the user with various functions including, but not limited to, zoom, sort, expand, reverse, preview, and activate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2002
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2006
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Teresa Mah, Ying Li, Brian Burdick, Kevin Paul Kornelson
  • Publication number: 20030154237
    Abstract: A system and method for extracting funnels from at least one input clickstream (CS) representing an ordered path of successively viewed web pages. The invention stores the CS in one or more tree structures in one scan, then traverses each tree structure to identify funnels satisfying input criteria, if any. The input criteria includes depth criteria, width criteria, starting page criteria, and end page criteria.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 25, 2002
    Publication date: August 14, 2003
    Applicant: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Teresa Mah, Hendricus D.J. Hoek, Ying Li